Be it in the battle field or somewhere else, severe bleeding can cause death in seconds. And until now we had nothing to stop bleeding instantly. At least not in 10 seconds flat. Here’s a gel that stops bleeding and merges into the extracellular matrix within a few seconds. It’s almost the end of 2014 and we’ll have it by the year 2015 starts. This is how science addresses practical problems like a boss…
Irukandji Syndrome is a condition which is so painful that even when the patient suffering from it is given the maximum dose of morphine, will still be in absolute agony. The victim also can’t be made unconscious because to ensure survival doctors have to monitor the victim while they’re conscious. It can also cause cardiac arrest, but is rarely fatal. This is how Wikipedia puts it:
One unusual symptom associated with the syndrome is a feeling of “impending doom”. Patients have been reported as being so certain they are going to die, they beg their doctors to kill them to get it over with.
Mysteriously, until the year 1964, Australians would go into the sea and occasionally come back in extreme agony, not knowing what caused it. The mystery was then solved by Jack Barnes, a medical doctor and a former military commando. How he did it is more interesting than anything else.
In 1961, Jack Handyside Barnes, nine year-old son of Jack Barnes, developed Irukandji syndrome and was rushed into a local hospital. Thus started the detective work of Jack Barnes. Following is an extract of what he did.
He perused through the logs of ambulances and hospitals and found that 85% of such reports were coming from victims at 2 beaches – Palm and Ellis beaches. By analysing wind directions and sea currents at different times of the year, he concluded that it was a jelly fish that was causing this. However, finding the jelly fish which caused the Irukandji syndrome was another task. He, by putting to use his detective skills finally was able to zero on a small jellyfish that was the size of a thumbnail (more detail on the detective work here).
The jellyfish later came to be known as Carukia barnesi, named after Jack Barnes himself. The story which tells us why it got his name is fascinating.
As a totally conclusive test that this particular jellyfish’s sting caused Irukandji syndrome, he decided to “perform an experiment that would challenge even John Hunter’s auto-inoculation with venereal disease for sheer bravado.”
So, he stung himself with it. Twelve minutes later, remarkable restlessness, constant movement, stamping about aimlessly winging their arms, twisting and writhing ensued. Then came abdominal and back pain, pain in the anterior chest wall and great difficulty in breathing, vomiting and what not. But he was finally able to conclude that it was this tiny thumbnail sized monster which caused it.
While walking across a dirt wall in the rainforest of Tambopata in Peru in 2011, a wildlife photographer Jeff Cremer noticed a few glowing creatures embedded in the wall. He clicked a few pictures and posted them on Reddit to ask the internet if anyone knew what these were.
Entomologists Aaron Pomerantz and his colleagues at the University of Florida went there to see these insects for themselves. They found that the insects were larvae with huge mandibles – which indicated they were predatory. Also, the larvae were bioluminiscent and could control when they wanted to glow.
So, now it can be said that a predatory ‘Glow Worm’ has been discovered in the Peruvian Rainforest.
via [perunature]
Halley’s Comet is a short-period comet and is visible from Earth every 75–76 years.In fact it is the only short-period comet that can be viewed without any telescopes from the surface of earth.Since it comes close every 75-76 years, a human can either see it only once or twice in their life time (or zero times, for really un lucky people).It last appeared in 1986 and is set to come back in the year 2061. Before 1986, it was going to enter the inner solar system in the year 1910. That was when it created a great turmoil among mankind.
Back in 1910 when it was predicted that Haley’s comet would pass very close to the earth, it was a matter of concern for everyone who read this in the newspaper. Later, astronomers realized that the 25 million kilometre trail of the comet would be passed by the earth. That was apparently too dangerous.
Using spectroscopy, Yerkes Observatory reported that the comet’s trail contained a lethal gas called cyanogen. New York times and other popular newspapers created headlines that suggested, humans would have to deal with this deadly gas when earth passes through the trail of Haley’s comet. An apocalypse was, sort of, predicted. Scientists tried to quell this unfounded fear among the people, but like always, it wasn’t really effective.
People rushed to buy gas masks to protect themselves from this deadly gas. Even “comet pills” were sold in abundance. As smithsonian puts it…
people in Georgia were preparing safe rooms and covering even keyholes with paper. (One man, the paper said, had “armed himself with a gallon of whiskey” and requested that friends lower him to the bottom of a dry well, 40 feet deep.)
Obviously, nothing of that sort happened. And it was just one of those notable apocalypse predictions that never happened. Though it was interesting that people were convinced enough to buy “comet pills” – I never knew these things even existed.
What better way to detect Alzheimer’s than to make the subjects smell a table-spoon of peanut butter. It works and could be the next-gen low-cost and non-invasive way to test for Alzheimer’s.
Researchers at University of Florida designed a test where a subject was asked to close their eyes and one of their nostrils at a time. Once that was done, a cup full of peanut butter was continually moved towards their open nostril. At the point where they said they could detect the odour, the distance of the cup from their nostril was measured. The same was done next for the other nostril.
They found that the people who were affected with Alzheimer’s had a significant asymmetry in their ability to smell from the left and right nostril. On an average the right nostril of an Alzheimer’s patient could detect the peanut butter from about 20 cm, while the left could do it from about 10 cm. That’s is an asymmetry they consider significant. Their experiment was based on this…
The ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve and is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline.
In the future, this could be a great and cheap way to screen for Alzheimer’s. Here is how it is done.
via [UFL news]
Elephants are amazing creatures with an amazing memory. It is often said “an elephant never forgets”. Also elephants display intelligent behaviour all the time. They have an astounding capacity to tackle novel and unforeseen circumstances by rapid and effective change of behaviour. Here’s what happened once in India.
An elephant was ordered to follow a truck and was designated a task of lowering logs into holes that were already dug. It was doing the allotted task nicely, when suddenly it stopped. The animal refused to put in this new log that was supposed to be lowered into a hole. It held the log up in the air and waited. When the elephant mahaout went out to check what was wrong, he found a dog was sleeping inside the hole. Only when the dog was shooed away by the mahaout, the elephant went ahead and lowered the log in there.
But that is just one of those many instances when an elephant showed such flexible behaviour. The video below talks about more such instances. And you can read more here [Link]
In the southern part of the Gulf of Carpentaria in Northern Australia from late September to early November a rare natural phenomenon is witnessed by thousands of tourists and locals of Burketown who come to see it – The rolling morning glory clouds.
These are huge 1000 km long rolling clouds appear about 1-2 km from ground every year. This is the only place where they are seen regularly and can be predicted. Some times just one, other times tens of them go rolling in the skies at speeds of 10-20 meters per second.
The Morning Glory cloud is not clearly understood because their rarity means they have little significance in terms of rainfall or climate.Regardless of the complexity behind the nature of this atmospheric phenomenon, some conclusions have been made about its causes. Through research, one of the main causes of most Morning Glory occurrences is the mesoscale circulations associated with sea breezes that develop over the peninsula and the gulf.
These have been seen in Japan and several other places too.
For one, Saturn is not the only planet with rings around it! and more…
There isn’t any defined pattern yet that describes the distribution and spacing of prime numbers among integers. But, the distribution of prime numbers might not be as random as it seems.
During one boring lecture, a polish mathematician was doodling in his notebook. He was writing all the numbers in a spiral, shown below. Then, he started circling the prime numbers and noticed there was something different about how prime numbers arranged themselves in this spiral.
He found that there was a great tendency for prime numbers to come in one of the diagonals. At first, it might look like the human brain is trying to make a pattern out of randomness, it actually isn’t so. Numberphile compares it with a random pattern of dots to clear that up. The video also shows some other startling prime number patterns which have been noted.
Earning a million dollars is not an easy task in any way. But the most difficult of all the ways to earn a million dollars is probably to solve one of the most difficult problems in mathematics ever – the Millennium problems. Rienmann Hypothesis is one of the seven millennium problems, out of which only one has been solved yet. Numberphile explains what this problem is about.
The human body is made up of around 10 trillion cells. That’s a number too huge to even imagine in the head. But the number of bacteria in a typical human body is about ten times that number. Yes, you are more bacteria than you are you. The good news is that most of them are good or benign ones. The whole community of other living organisms have a major impact on everything on your life. However, not everything is known about all the things in your body yet.
Similarly, the full mechanism of all the ways in which viruses affect us is still being studies. And an interesting study comes along.
Scientists from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Nebraska have discovered a kind of virus, which they call the “stupidity virus”, is something that they believe affects human intelligence. They don’t seem to make you unhealthy in any way. There’s a lot to be sceptical about it for now. But, considering the sheer amount of information we don’t have, let’s keep an open mind about it.
They found these viruses in throat cultures of a few healthy subjects. 44% of the healthy subjects who tested positive for this virus recorded an average of 7-9 IQ points less. I know, IQ tests can’t be trusted, but that’s fine.
At least, now you have someone to blame when you score low on your tests.
I was in the bus today. Considering the hot desert sun outside, it was fairly dark inside. The moment I stepped out, sneezed. For once again it felt like there was something about the sun that made me sneeze. Instantly I was reminded of the countless times this has happened to me in the past. I asked a couple of friends and I found that most shared a similar experience. I had to find out more about it.
Turns out, about third of the people in our planet have their brains wired in a way that makes them sneeze when they see the sun – or more specifically, when a sudden change in light intensity occurs. It’s called photic sneeze reflex, photoptarmosis or simply “sun sneezing”. It’s one of those phenomena which are not totally understood till now, but there’s a good explanation for it.
It’s been noted for a long time. Even Aristotle had documented it in The Book of Problems. According to him it was the nose getting heated by the sun which caused it. However, his explanation for it wasn’t very accurate.
An English philosopher Francis Bacon proved his theory wrong by closing his eyes and letting his nose heat in the sun. He didn’t sneeze. His theory was that the sun made eyes water and the moisture in in turn irritated the nose, which causes you to sneeze. Not really.
This is how scientists explain it – As we all know, an irritation in the nose causes sneezing. That is because a nerve called trigeminal nerve senses irritation and sends a signal to the brain. This nerve is very close to the optic nerve. So, when the eye is exposed to sunlight, the optic nerve sends an electric signal to the brain. This signal, scientists think, leaks into the trigeminal nerve too and makes it fire a signal (saying “irritation”). And then you sneeze.
As it is understood presently, this is a genetic trait that is passed on to the offspring with a 50% chance of the offspring showing the same trait. So, if one parent sneezes in the sun, one out of two of his kids will have the same reflex.
On the seabed, a mysterious geometrically symmetric circular pattern measuring about 6.5 feet in diameter was spotted. The pattern resembled crop circles. The artist wasn’t known for some time and there were many stories sprouting on the internet.
It was found later using underwater cameras that the artist was a puffer fish. Male puffer fish make this beautiful sculpture to attract a female puffer fish. It has since been observed that more ridges and more shells a male puffer fish adorns its sculpture with, more are the chances it would attract a mate.
Of course there are owls like the burrowing owl and the short-eared owl who are active during the day, but most owls hunt in the darkness. The ones who hunt at night rely on stealth to surprise and catch their prey. For this, owls have evolved in a really beautiful manner.
Firstly, owls have very dull coloured feathers which allow it to blend with the surroundings. At night, or even during the day, such colours make them virtually invisible among tree barks and leaves. Do you see an owl in this picture? Trust me, there is one. Try looking closely.
But there’s another more interesting way by which owls are able to execute the silent kill. Over the years, they have evolved to produce feathers which have tiny serrations on one edge of some of their feathers. These reduce the wing flap sound significantly.
More interestingly, owls who hunt fish, who don’t need to be silent, don’t have these serrations. That’s because it serves no evolutionary advantage for them.
I talked about chillies the other day. It’s really interesting how plants evolved to spread their seeds and migrate to places.
When seeds drop off near a plant, it’s bad for the mother plant because the young one starts to compete with it, for food and nutrients – not a very good thing to keep your genetic line alive. So to avoid this from happening plants adapted by putting their seeds in these sweet things called fruits. As if inviting animals and humans to pick it, eat it and throw the seed at some place far away. In case the seeds get eaten, they usually don’t get digested and still fall out with the droppings to some new place. Also to prevent seeds from going away before they were mature, as they were pumped with a chemical called tanin, unripe fruits evolved to be dry and sharp tasting.
But cranberry plants thought of trying something different. Instead of wasting precious sugar by putting them in fruits, they put in tanin into the cranberries – which is what gives that not-sweet taste to cranberries. That also meant the fuits would taste bad and animals won’t eat them (but we still do, all those years of evolution for nothing?). To get transported to places far away, cranberries got a design that featured an air pocket inside so they’d float. When the fruit becomes ripe, it drops onto the water, floats and goes to a distant place to spread the genetic line.
To make it worse for the evolutionary plan, cranberries floating in water makes it even easier for humans to harvest them.